When I went to see Saving Private Ryan, I think that some of the other cinemagoers got themselves quite a surprise. Unless one has read the reviews in the newspaper, I find it hard to believe that anybody was prepared for the deadly serious, extremely realistic, and harrowing sequence of the landing of allied soldiers on the shores of Normandy June 6 1944. Yet, this is just the beginning. It was distressing to watch men fall apart, both physically and mentally, but by showing us the inhumanity of war, maybe it has a humanizing effect on us.
Captain Miller is assigned to find Private Ryan who has been dropped behind the enemy lines. Nobody knows exactly where. Ryan's three brothers have recently been killed in the war, so the War Department has decided that Mrs. Ryan is not to be deprived of her only surviving son. Miller and the seven men he picks for the mission have a dangerous and difficult task before them.
My only point of criticism is the addition of a frame sequence that takes place in our time. There is no need to emphasize the implication of the war for the world we live in today and the men who fought it, and I didn't need that extra bit to move me because I already was moved.